Shadow
by skysedge
Summary: Did it scare you, when you realised that shadows could speak? Cassian-centric oneshot, post volume 5. Mostly canon.


**A/N **This is a drabblesque, Cassian-centric ramble written between 11pm and 1am after I had decided not to do any writing for the evening. Set between volumes 5 and 8, so spoilers for up to volume 5. Not explicitly intended as a yaoi fic and the emotions I tried to express are what I see as canon but you may not agree. Inspired by Torch Song by AFI.

-x-

These tunnels breathe at night, I'd swear to it. It's as though some great animal lives down here, ready to swallow me whole if I wait too long.

I can't wait much longer. _You _can't wait much longer, can you? I don't know how I know, but I do. I will not let you die alone, not while I hide down here wrapped in clothes that disguise a skin that isn't my own, both the greatest gift I have ever received and the most terrifying.

Why did you save me? You hate me. You hate everyone. So why am I still here?

That question has been echoing in my mind since I left. I have never been one for philosophy or fine words but in these dark tunnels, my mind betrays me and speaks with a poetic tongue. I still can't reach a satisfactory answer. I think I know you better than anyone. I _think_. But you're still a mystery. If Cassandra couldn't understand even after seeing into your soul, then what chance does an old man like me have?

I'd do anything to see the world through your eyes. When I can't sleep at night, which is most nights recently, I wonder if there's any colour in your world at all or if the city is cast in monochrome, a world of shadows or searing brightness. In a world like that, there'd be no clear cut black and white. You could never be truly evil or truly innocent there. I guess I've always seen you in shades of grey.

Although I suppose your world would be filled with one colour, wouldn't it? I can picture it now. With each breath you can see the blood of every organism you destroy and your hands are perpetually coloured in the crimson lives of your victims. If you turned to look in a silver mirror, you would see scarlet gashes staining the marble of your back.

I sit up and stare into the inky darkness. It's too much, that vision. It's all too easy to imagine that this really is the way you view the world. If it is, then not only would I do anything to see the world as you do but I would fight to replace your sight with my own, for what little comfort it would bring. I'm no stranger to pain and suffering but I can appreciate the warm oranges of sunsets and the green of spring...the hint of lilacs blooming in your cold eyes. Beautiful things, naturally beautiful things, are all that is pure in the world. The sun doesn't need protecting. The spring will always follow the winter. I have to protect the one thing I am able to.

How do I appear to you? Before, I suppose I was like a shadow, always dogging your steps. You treated me like one, until recently. Did it scare you, when you realised that shadows could speak? And now, what am I in your sight? An experiment, cast in red? A shadow? Or am I _him_, a dark, shifting smear that leers with crimson lips and reaches out with ivory talons?

How does the world feel to you, I wonder? Is it as cold and cruel as it looks? I once believed you to be incapable of emotion, thought that the arrogant smirk you fixed onto your lips told me everything I needed to know. I was wrong. I knew that the day I saw you smiling warmly at the doves eating from your hands. You could feel joy, something I myself had long outgrown. You've always been a child. You can feel pain too. The day I saw the blood running down your back as you sat silently before the whip taught me that. Only agony could keep such a carefully blank expression intact.

I cried for you, that day, the first time I had cried in years. I cried until my eyes stung and my lungs ached. My tears weren't a drop in the ocean compared to the amount that you deserve.

My hands are trembling. Again. Each night I do this to myself. I sit here and remember every terrible thing or imagine everything you could be doing at this instant. Useless. I'm pathetic, a fucking coward and I always have been. If I care, why the hell am I sitting here in the dark when I could be there with you? Do you want me there? Does it matter if you do or not?

I stand up and cross to the tunnel wall, before slamming my palm against the cold stone. It bites into my skin, one jagged edge puncturing my thumb. The pain is sharp and hot, a pale echo of the searing agony inside my heart and head.

"Hold on..." I murmur. I don't know whether I am talking to myself or to you. I've seen you breaking for years but now I feel myself nearing breaking point too. I close my eyes. The darkness is filled with colour, memories burned into the back of my eyelids.

I'd give anything for you to see the world as I do. Yes, it's dark and bleak but my world is never cold. I wish you could see the power in the setting sun, the life in a blooming tree. I wish I could show you how beautiful you are. Even on nights like this, I can't find words to describe it. You're at once angelic and demonic, childlike and sinful. Cassandra could see that. He found it amusing, intoxicating, something to be claimed and explored with brutal hands. To me, your beauty is untouchable, so fragile it might break. If I could tell you that, would you believe me? People have been killed for saying less but if I thought it would change anything I'd tell you in a heartbeat.

I wish you could feel the world with me. I felt every laceration in my soul as well as my skin, something which helped me sleep at night. I know you spend nights lying awake; I've seen you. I'd sell my soul to lend you the passion I feel grip me, to let you feel the white hot talons of rage tear through your chest, or the ardent agony of devotion wrap its gentle fingers around your heart. Maybe then you'd know what I feel every time I lay my eyes upon you, something I know I could never truly express in words. It's sinful but it's nearly all I have left.

It's like love but without the hope of requital and without tenderness. It's an aching, crushing feeling that I fear might kill me one day. It's killed me once already. I don't know if you'd bring me back a second time.

And once again I wonder, why? Why did you save me? Do you hate me? Were you frightened, after feeling my blood cool on your fingertips and my body grow limp in your arms? Did you want revenge on him? Was I just a well-time opportunity for research? _Why_?

I rest my forehead against the cold stone and smile weakly. Why does it matter? I'm here. I'm alive. And for now, so are you. I have waited too long in darkness. Even if you hate me, I _will_ save you. I just need to use my brain to find a way, rather than letting myself get caught up like this. There'll be time to find out why one day; you just have to be alive for when I summon the courage to ask.

I lay back down, force my eyes shut and listen to the tunnels breathe around me. I am surrounded my darkness but the darkness behind my eyes is filled with colour and light. Hope. Joy. Fear. Pain, too.

I want to show you the world as I see it, Jizabel, but I shall not give my life again. I want to be there to hold you when the sensations become too much.

I shall be a shadow no longer.

-x-

**A/N** Thanks for reading! Please leave a review ^^


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